A video I made about my experience of the Reclaim The Streets Protest, on 4th April 2009, Bank of England.
The day started off quite peacefully, with the march from Moorgate (one of 4) being a relaxed affair, people walking up the street towards Bank using loadhailers to get across their political messages. The crowd was mixed - eco warriors, free Palestine demonstrators, financial crime haters, jobless civilians fighting for answers and black bloc anarchists.
Threadneedle St started to get packed as early as 12:30pm, with police throwing smoke bombs into crowds for no apparent reason, riot cops trying to force crowds back in on themselves in an effort to 'contain' them, and beating people up with trunchens the minute the protestors got too close.
The police barracaded tens of thousandsof people into Bank, with all five roads leading out of the junction being controlled by scores of police on horses, with riot shields, helmets and batons. At one point when filming, I was pushed though the crowd of riot police, and was lucky to have escaped with only an elbow to my face.
Later on, we went to Climate Camp. This section isnt covered in my film, as by then my battery had ran out, but it started as a peaceful protest in the middle of Bishopsgate (right next to Liverpool Street), where a few thousand people had set up tents, occupying the main road completly, playing music, and handing out free food to hungry demonstrators. However, after a few hours, the police started to infringe on this peace, and began to move in on the crowds, blocking us in from both sides, and also blocking the other thousands of protestors who were a couple of streets away on Threadneedle St from being able to reach us. The police were shitting themselves really, but made up for their fear by hitting people who were sitting down in protest, and not letting anybody out for over 4 hours
By around midnight, we were set free. Shouting 'we are not prisoners', me and my friends walked all the way home from Liverpool Street to Dalston.
13 Hours of Protest.
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